I think it's mostly that in the biology space, at least in my country, they will be paid less than half of a software engineer's salary.
The only way to diagnose conclusively is via a brain biopsy, which apparently isn’t worth the risk in most cases. Conclusive diagnosis is often done post-mortem.
(my girlfriend works in this area)
If I remember what I read years ago (see "Deadly Feasts" book by Richard Rhodes, I recall it being a good read, and part of what made me swear off beef) they actually look at the brain matter to see if the amyloid plaques are present -- the degenerated holes in the brain tissue. I didn't think there was some molecular-kind of test for the proteins themselves. But my info is from years ago on this.
Prions are damn near indestructible and cause awful diseases for which we have no treatment or cure. It's the biological equivalent of false vacuum decay.
It's scary because it has no way to be destroyed, aside from incineration of items you know are contaminated (which often people don't know are contaiminated), or possibly dilution in the environment to undetectable levels. And aside from that, the progression of the disease and the neurological symptoms/effects on a person are terrible.
Prions are not even at virus-level of livingness. Like a propogating hardware bug. Or like Vonnegut's ice-nine.
I find it interesting that at least the three I am aware of: scrapie, BSE and kirii - maybe others too - are all associated with cannibalism. In sheep, cows and humans respectively.
Shame on me since I actually once met an old woman in Papua New Guinea who had participated in funerary cannibalism as a young girl. She had had no ill-effects though.